Swedish investor Norrsken has closed a new €57m fund to back early-stage European startups focused on the sustainability and resilience of the continent.
The fund, dubbed Norssken Evolve, started in 2021 as an accelerator program, before morphing into a fully-fledged VC fund with the backing of LPs, including Saminvest, the European Investment Fund (EIF), SmartCap Green Fund.
Skaala, the family office of Skype alumni and Wise cofounder Taavet Hinrikus and his Skype colleague Sten Tamkivi, is also an LP.
Alex Bakir, general partner at Norrsken, says the fund is interested in companies reducing our dependence on fossil fuels; tech to boost electricity grids; startups working on next-generation materials and localised supply chains; and some health and biotech applications.
Funding for climate tech startups fell over 70% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Bakir, who has a background in climate science, says although the hype-cycle has moved away from climate tech, the need clearly remains.
“Climate is caught in a bad cycle,” he says. “The problems don’t go away, they get worse with each cycle. What happens is attention shifts.”
Bakir will run the new fund alongside Johan Attby, who previously worked at Norrsken’s accelerator, and Rebecka Löthman Rydå, who joined in December from Nordic venture fund Inventure.
Resilience
Norrsken Evolve’s focus on ‘resiliency’ is part of a wider trend within the VC world. The term encompasses technologies aimed at ensuring European sovereignty — the continent’s independence from places like the US, during growing geopolitical unease.
“At its core, resilience is: how do we survive and thrive in an area of disruption,” says Bakir. “We’re seeing a lot of that, not only linked to climate, but also supply chain disruptions, the impact of tariffs, and whether our digital infrastructure can be relied upon.”
Many sustainability-focused companies have started to use the term to describe their offerings, particularly as spending on defence – another industry which enjoys the term – has increased.
“We would never invest in anything like weapons,” says Bakir. “But selling technology to governments to ensure the safety of the people and the infrastructure is absolutely within scope for this fund.”
As the White House under Donald Trump has sought to undermine green initiatives in favour of fossil fuels, ‘resiliency’ has become a way for climate companies to convey their benefit to society beyond emissions reduction.
“It’s been used in academic literature for decades,” he says, “but it has become much more popular. I think it really does help play to the current political climate.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/norrsken-evolve-resilience-fund/
